


Starman

by PenPistola



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Additional Tags to Be Added, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alien!Viktor, Aliens, All the Russians are aliens, Language Barrier, M/M, Panic Attacks, Science Fiction, Skater!Yuuri, Space Battles, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2018-12-22 06:03:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenPistola/pseuds/PenPistola
Summary: Yuuri is lost, unable to decide whether or not to accept Coach Celestino's offer to train under him in America. When he wishes on a shooting star that turns out to be a crash-landing alien spaceship, everything changes.An E.T./The Last Starfighter-inspired Alien!Viktor AU!





	1. Zero Zero UFO

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my _completely_ self-indulgent E.T./The Last Starfighter-inspired Alien!Viktor AU!
> 
> It's been a long time since I wrote a multi-chapter fic that wasn't at least 75% complete at the time of first posting, so I can't promise a frequent or regular schedule. However, I do have the whole plot at least loosely outlined, and I'm in it to win it!
> 
> The fic's title is borrowed from the late, legendary David Bowie's song of the same name. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: suicidal ideation, near-drowning.

_It landed in a field in Idaho_  
_Where it came from, I don't know_  
_It did not look like it came from Japan  
And out of the dark walked a strange man_

-The Ramones, "Zero Zero UFO"

 

**June, 2010**

Yuuri stood on the shore of Hasetsu Bay, letting the surf roll over his bare ankles as he stared out into the sea. The beach was his favorite place to come when Ice Castle was closed and he needed somewhere to think. It was so lovely out here in the small hours of the night. So peaceful. The stars were scattered diamonds against the fathomless black sky overhead, and mirrored on the glimmering waves. The rhythmic, hissing rush was like a lullaby. The warmth of summer still lingered like a caress in the salt sea air. Yuuri took a deep breath, his lungs expanding to capacity, and he tried not to panic.

It wasn't an easy thing. The invitation from Celestino Cialdini to train in America still sat in Yuuri's desk drawer, untouched and unanswered. Even from here, it felt like a noose around his neck. Everybody _wanted_ something from him, and he wasn't sure he could deliver. The JSF wanted a world-class skater in the senior division. His parents wanted their investment to pay off. Yuuko wanted someone to bear out her abandoned childhood dreams. Minako wanted to relive her glory days through her protégé.

And Yuuri. What did he want?

He wanted to stand at the top of the podium, a gold medal strung around his neck. He wanted to feel the scrape of his blades over the ice as he landed a quadruple toe loop, a Salchow, a flip. He wanted the world to know that Katsuki Yuuri was not a failure, and not afraid. But of all the things anyone wanted for him, Yuuri knew his own desires were the least likely to ever come true.

Yuuri looked down at the foam around his ankles, at the wet hems of his jeans rolled up to his calves. That quiet, deep part of him he normally tried to silence whispered that he should walk into the sea until he disappeared beneath the waves. _If you were gone,_ it said, _you couldn't disappoint anyone._ He felt the insidious curl of those familiar, dark thoughts, and shied away from them. He'd been down that road before and he didn't like where it led.

The pressure only continued to build as his time slipped away. Coach Celestino would expect a response soon, and if he didn't accept, the JSF might not be pleased. But could he really abandon everything he had ever known and move halfway across the world on his own? Some days it still felt like he could hardly tie his own shoes. His parents weren't exactly doting, but they were still there for him when he needed them, and he had Mari, and Yuuko and Takeshi, and Minako. Hasetsu was the only home he'd ever known, and without its support, Yuuri feared he would collapse. All the same, if he didn't go, he knew his dreams would burn him from within. He could never be satisfied if he didn't try.

What he needed most at that moment was a sign. Something to break through the anxiety that threatened to strangle him, to give him that little extra push he needed to make a decision.

Something like… like the shooting star streaking across the sky over the Genkai-nada.

Yuuri didn't believe in wishing on stars, traditional Tanabata wishes for better handwriting notwithstanding. But maybe he could make an exception now, for extraordinary circumstances. He breathed in deeply through his nose, and for once, allowed himself to hope.

_I wish I knew what to do. I wish I weren't alone in this. I wish..._

He didn't get further than that. The shooting star was moving slower than the typical one- or two-second bursts he was used to, leaving a wide, fiery trail of orange sparks almost like a comet. As he watched, it broke up in the atmosphere. Several chunks shed off the central mass and burned up in brief white flares. One large piece split off at an angle, still burning, but not disintegrating. There was no way for Yuuri to tell the object's ultimate trajectory, but he couldn't see a tail, like it was moving parallel to his line of sight. And it was growing larger.

" _Kuso_ ," he breathed, and started backing away, slowly at first, and then with increasing desperation. A high-pitched whistle assaulted his ears, like the whine of a firework. The object tumbled closer and closer at a frightening rate, and then… Yuuri held his breath.

_KRSSHSPLASH_.

The object, whatever it was, crashed into the bay, sending up a plume of mist and steam almost a hundred feet tall. Yuuri's feet churned the sand as he ran for the pier, but he wasn't fast enough—a tiny tidal wave smacked into him from behind at thigh level and nearly toppled him. He cried out in fright, hands reaching out to stabilize himself and finding nothing but water. It was only fear for the safety of his cell phone that kept him upright. He staggered his way up to the tideline, struggling for breath and deafened by his heart pounding in his ears.

Once he'd reached a safe distance, he turned to look at the aftermath of the splashdown. He could see the dark, round shape of the strange object maybe forty meters out, bobbing madly on the waves. A red light on the top blinked rhythmically. Whatever it was was manmade. A satellite, maybe, but those usually burned up completely in the atmosphere when they fell out of orbit. Perhaps it was a scientific capsule meant for retrieval. If that were the case, someone would probably be coming for it. It wasn't any of Yuuri's business, he told himself, and he should leave it alone. Go home, crawl into his bed, and let the authorities deal with it. But then in a spray of fine mist, the top of the capsule was ejected away, and he saw the clear silhouette of an arm flailing in the moonlight.

There was a _person_ in there.

No sooner had the capsule opened than water began to pour in, and Yuuri heard a faint cry of distress as the interior flooded. The capsule was fairly large, over ten feet in diameter, but it would only be a matter of moments before it was completely swamped. And without help, its occupant could very easily drown.

Yuuri's indecision evaporated in the face of sudden clarity: _I have to do something_. Without a moment's hesitation, he stripped off his shirt and tossed it further up the beach, along with his cell phone and glasses. The ocean had calmed again, and Yuuri was a strong swimmer, so he was confident he could reach the capsule before it sank. He splashed through the surf until the water was at chest height, and then after making sure he was lined up correctly, dove in.

_Stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, breathe._

Yuuri came up to regain his bearings a couple dozen meters out and glanced around. He was half-blind without his glasses on a good day, and worse with saltwater stinging his eyes, but the red light on top of the capsule was a beacon that drew him in and kept him on track. The capsule was riding lower in the water now. He could hear a panicked voice coming from within, and every now and then he thought he caught a glimpse of a head of light hair. A fresh pulse of dread iced through his veins, and he set off again, his strong front crawl cutting through the waves. He reached the capsule just as the weight of the water inside hit equilibrium with the capsule itself. He'd barely slapped his hand down on the rim of the hatch before it began to sink precipitously, with an ominous gurgle.

"Hold on!" he cried, and thrust his arm into the opening. Almost immediately, a strong hand closed around his forearm, and Yuuri had to fight to avoid getting pulled in. He braced his feet against the side of the capsule, and with his body, yanked the person free just as the whole thing was sucked down into the deep below.

It was a man, shouting with terror every time his head rose above the waves. He thrashed around a bit, and then enveloped Yuuri's shoulders in a tight grip, a behavior Yuuri remembered from some long-ago P.E. lesson was a sign of someone unable to swim. "Hey!" Yuuri burbled, attempting to stay afloat despite his own increasing panic. "You need to let go of me, or we're both going to drown!" He got no response, and if anything, the man's grip tightened. Their combined weight began to pull them under, and Yuuri sucked in a desperate gasp of air before the water closed over his head. The other man was not so lucky. Yuuri heard the last of his air leave his lungs a short moment later in a bubbling stream.

The water was at least thirty feet deep this far out; too deep for them to sink and push off the bottom, which Yuuri couldn't see in any case. The distorted, wavering image of the moon hung just out of reach, so close one moment, but getting further with every second. His muscles screamed as the aerobic metabolic process shut down. Black spots teemed at the edges of his dimming vision.

This was it. Yuuri was going to drown. He'd tried to save someone, and it was going to be the death of him. If the water itself didn't kill him, the irony would.

But then in the recesses of his oxygen-starved mind, he realized that the other man, who'd run out of air long before Yuuri, had gone slack. Yuuri was pervaded with a strange sense of calm. This was his chance.

He struggled his way to the surface of the water and burst forth, sucking air greedily until the ache in his lungs abated. Then he took another giant lungful and dove back down, searching in the darkness though the salt stung his eyes. The fear he'd felt only a moment before had been overtaken by determination: _I will save him. No matter what._

The man was hanging lifelessly a dozen feet below the surface, his pale hair swaying in the current like seaweed. He wasn't wearing any loose-fitting clothing that Yuuri could grab onto, but Yuuri was able to hook an arm around his middle for a secure grip. Yuuri kicked his feet, mentally thanking Minako for drilling him in ballet until he had the thighs of a demigod, and together they broke the surface again. The man let out a weak cough, but stayed limp.

It took a moment for Yuuri to orient himself, with the capsule lost and the beach only a dark smudge in the distance. He'd felt confident about his swimming skills when he'd set out, but it seemed much farther when he'd only just escaped drowning and had the weight of another person to drag along with him. He filled his lungs and drifted onto his back, letting his natural buoyancy keep their heads above the waterline, and kicked for all he was worth.

It was a slow haul, and grueling. Being deprived of oxygen for so long hadn't done him any favors. His lungs burned like fire, muscles cramping, but he was _almost_ _there._ He could make it. He could _make it_. He _could_ –

With one final heave, Yuuri beached himself and the other man onto the gritty shoreline. He took no more than a moment to catch his breath, and then hooked his arms under the man's armpits to haul him out of the surf to safety. Outside of the water, the man's dead weight made it difficult for Yuuri to maneuver him, but with the adrenaline still coursing through his system he found the strength to get them both to dry ground.

Their progress left a deep gouge in the sand—the man was _big_. Well over six feet, Yuuri realized once he'd laid him out on his back, and fairly muscular. His chest was still, whole body motionless.

Yuuri took a deep breath and rubbed the sand from his hands. He was no expert at CPR, but he thought he knew enough to get the man breathing again, if his heart hadn't stopped. Yuuri held a hand to the other man's wrist and throat to check for a pulse. The rhythm was strange, slow and thready, but there, to Yuuri's relief. He turned the man's head to the side, draining a bit of water from his mouth and nose. Now he just had to… to...

Yuuri froze, hands hovering over the man's face. He closed his eyes. Opened them again. No; the man definitely still had long, delicate pointed ears. But as bizarre as _that_ was, Yuuri couldn't spare the time to dwell on it. He tilted the man's chin up, pinched his nose between two fingers, and knelt down to breathe the life back into him.

_One, two, three, four._

He put his ear to the man's mouth. Nothing.

_One, two, three_ –

The man coughed and spluttered seawater directly into Yuuri's face, eyes wide open and a brilliant, startling blue. He turned over on his side away from Yuuri and curled in on himself, dragging in wet, shallow breaths and shuddering.

Yuuri backed off and wiped his mouth on his shoulder, but succeeded only in grinding sand into his skin. He remembered his glasses and jogged over to retrieve them from where he'd tossed them aside, and then raced back. "A-are you okay?" he asked in Japanese, and then in English when he received no answer. Perhaps the more pertinent question was, " _What_ are you?" Because whatever he was (was it a 'he'?), the man most certainly wasn't human. And since he'd come from beyond the atmosphere, the likeliest conclusion was that he wasn't from Earth at all.

The man—the _alien_ —was dressed in what looked like skintight neoprene swim shorts, or some kind of underwear. The rest of his pale skin was bare. Yuuri watched as his chest expanded and contracted, eyes lingering on the musculature that wasn't structured quite right, that moved differently in a way Yuuri couldn't put a finger on but was somehow _off_. His proportions were unusual, too. He was long in the arms and body, with blocky hands that ended in dark nails bizarrely triangular in cross-section. Yuuri caught a flash of white teeth as the alien gasped for air, and saw that the canines were pointed and sharp. For the first time, Yuuri wondered whether he might be in danger. But then the alien's breaths began to even out into something more regular, and his eyes slipped closed. If he wasn't already passed out, then he was on the verge of it.

"Hello?" Yuuri called, but got no response. He inched closer to push at the alien's shoulder, and the alien flopped limply onto his back.

Well, shit.

Yuuri glanced several meters down the beach at where his shirt and his cell phone still lay. Should he call 119 for help? He had no way of knowing whether he'd truly saved the alien's life, or simply doomed him to die of pneumonia later, the kind of thing only a medical professional could ascertain. But if he called someone, he couldn't be sure what it would mean for the alien. In the worst case, it might end in capture and torturous medical testing. He'd seen plenty of sci-fi films, and things rarely went well for extraterrestrials on Earth.

_..._ Oh god, Yuuri had put his mouth on a _space_ _alien_. Who knew what kind of foreign contaminants or diseases he'd exposed himself to?

Ah, well. No helping it now.

Yuuri gazed down at the alien's face, taking in his sharp jaw and cheekbones, the soft mouth, the pointed ears. The alien's pale skin and hair caught the moonlight and fairly glowed. He was beautiful, in a (literally) otherworldly way. Yuuri didn't want him to die, or be captured, and he didn't want the inevitable scrutiny his _own_ life would come under if the government found out he'd unwittingly made first contact with a sentient species.

He crawled over to his cell phone and checked the time. One in the morning. It was well past late enough that his parents and Mari were in bed. If he were quiet enough, he could probably sneak back in with the alien unnoticed. Yuuri could put him somewhere safe to observe him and do some research, and once he knew more, he could decide on how to proceed.

There, that was a logical, sane decision. ...Right?

"I hope I don't regret this," Yuuri sighed.

There was no way he'd be able to get the alien all the way back home by himself, so the first step was to get him moving under his own power. Yuuri wrestled his wet body back into his T-shirt, toed on his sandals, then knelt and patted gently at the alien's cheek. "Hello?"

The alien groaned, and turned away slightly. That he was moving at all was surely a good sign.

"Please wake up." Yuuri ran his fingers through the damp, sandy hair, and the alien's eyes opened to sapphire slits. They were glazed and unfocused, but it was better than nothing.

"Hey there," Yuuri said in his tentative English. "I know you probably don't understand me, but I'm going to take you someplace safe, okay? You're really heavy, and I don't think I can carry you. Do you think you can get up?"

The alien's mouth parted slightly, his only reaction, but when Yuuri pulled at his arm, he slowly and unsteadily rose to a reclining position, balanced on his other elbow. "That's great. Now we just need to stand up, okay?"

Getting the alien to his feet was a bit more difficult, considering how weak he'd been left by his ordeal. It was a good thing Yuuri was in competition shape. He ended up having to muscle the alien halfway onto his shoulder, using his strong thighs and core to force them both upright. "Wow," Yuuri whispered at the confirmation that this person was seriously tall compared to him, probably 6'5" or 6'6" when standing straight. He swayed like he was drunk, so Yuuri wrapped an arm around the alien's torso to hold him steady. His skin was surprisingly cool to the touch.

"Do you think you can walk?" Yuuri asked. He took a few tentative steps forward, and in a daze, the alien followed—if he hadn't, he'd have slipped off Yuuri's back and faceplanted into the sand. His ragged breaths feathered across the back of Yuuri's neck, and Yuuri shivered involuntarily. "It's not far. Not even a quarter of a mile. You can make it, come on."

Step by grueling step, Yuuri got them closer and closer to his home. It was slow progress, most of it uphill, and he was glad for once that Hasetsu was so small and insular. Nobody was awake or about at this time of night. Yuuri still startled at every noise, and held his breath whenever they made their stumbling way under a street light, but they made it to Yu-topia Katsuki's gate without incident twenty minutes after they'd set out.

"This is where I live," Yuuri murmured as they passed beneath the hand-painted sign he'd gotten many a splinter touching up. So far the alien hadn't responded to any of Yuuri's rambling, but it made him feel better to imagine he was talking to a visiting friend. "My family runs a hot springs inn. Maybe you can try it later on." _If you're not dead, or captured_.

Yu-topia was dark and quiet. The alien's steps had grown more sluggish over the course of their journey, and he was all but catatonic by the time they made it into Yuuri's home. Yuuri kicked his sandals off haphazardly in the _genkan_ (the alien didn't have shoes) and made a mental note to come sweep up the sand they'd tracked in before his mother could see it. "Just a little bit further," he whispered. The stairs were yet another challenge, with the alien hardly able to raise his four-toed feet high enough to clear each step. Near the top, his knees buckled and Yuuri feared his weight would drag them into falling, but he redoubled his grip on the handrail, gritted his teeth, and hauled them to safety.

At last they reached Yuuri's bedroom. He slid the door open as quietly as he could, and, double-checking to make sure his parents' and Mari's doors were closed, he flicked on the light. The alien flinched away in protest, burying his cold nose into Yuuri's neck. "Sorry, sorry. I'll kill the lights once I've got you taken care of."

When Yuuri began to lower him onto the bed, the alien's knees gave out completely and he collapsed, nearly toppling Yuuri with him. He was far too tall for Yuuri's bed, and his lower legs hung over the bottom, but with a little repositioning Yuuri had him curled on his side and entirely contained. Yuuri pulled the comforter over the alien and tucked him in before remembering to turn off the overhead light in favor of his dimmer lamp. The alien seemed to appreciate this, letting out a quiet sigh and settling in with his eyes closed. His breathing was slow and shallow, but smooth. Asleep in seconds.

"Good, you rest," Yuuri whispered. "You'll feel better in the morning." At least, he hoped.

Yuuri's clothes were wet and sandy and entirely too miserable to spend any amount of time in. He pulled a soft top, pajama bottoms, and some clean underwear from his dresser, and after triple-checking that the alien was out cold, changed as quickly as he could. He still turned around—even growing up in an onsen wasn't enough to cure him of his modesty. Once he was dressed he let out an exhausted breath and sank down onto his computer chair, rolling the tension out of his shoulders. He was going to be miserable tomorrow, for sure. Of course, muscle fatigue was the least of his worries. He had an _alien_ in his bed. Yuuri was staring right at him, watching the blankets rise and fall as he breathed, and it still hardly seemed real.

Yuuri spared a glance over at his desk drawer, where Celestino's offer still sat. Just an hour ago, the issue of whether or not to accept had felt like life-or-death, but now it was a minor complication in the face of what he'd just experienced. He still wasn't sure what his next course of action should be. Maybe he ought to tell someone. He liked to think he could trust his family, Minako, and Yuuko, but he didn't want to involve any of them in this in case it went badly. On the other hand, he was a terrible liar, and it felt wrong to keep his loved ones in the dark.

The best thing to do would be to wait until the alien had recovered a bit, and then try and communicate. Maybe he could help the alien leave Earth before anyone found out he'd arrived, and this would all just go away.

Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow, he would get to the bottom of this. He'd find out where the alien had come from, and together they would come up with a plan to send him back.

Yeah. Yeah, that sounded nice.

Yuuri tried to stay awake—what if the alien took a turn for the worse, or his mother came in to check on him? Nonetheless, by three in the morning he was sound asleep, slumped backwards in his computer chair.

He dreamed of stars.


	2. Intergalactic Planetary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yuuri is properly introduced to his new alien friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally back! Sorry for the long wait. I did some pretty extensive revisions to the overall plot and the worldbuilding in writing this chapter, and folding it all into my outline and making sure everything jived took some time. Hopefully from hereon out, you won't have to wait _nearly_ as long for an update. Special thanks to [Okaasan59](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Okaasan59) for her invaluable beta assistance.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: panic attacks.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Your knees'll start shakin' and your fingers pop_  
_Like a pinch on the neck of Mr. Spock_

-Beastie Boys, "Intergalactic"

 

Yuuri slowly came awake the next morning with a killer crick in his neck, and his entire ass asleep. He was sitting in his computer chair. Had he passed out playing video games? That hadn't happened since he was a kid. What had made him...

Oh. _Oh_.

Yuuri's eyes snapped open to the early-morning sun streaming through his blinds, illuminating glittering shafts of dust motes—as well as the alien lying curled up in his bed, still sound asleep. Yuuri's stomach dropped. He was relieved the alien hadn't moved during the night, but at the same time, he'd half hoped the whole encounter had been some bizarre, hallucinatory mental break, and he'd wake up alone. It was simple, he'd just gone insane! One too many times hitting his head on the ice, and he'd lost it.

But no; even if Yuuri were imagining his guest's presence, the deep-seated ache in his legs and shoulders was all too real. It had actually happened. He tilted his head back and let that sink in. Boring, shy Katsuki Yuuri had saved a _space alien_ from drowning in the sea, and brought him home like a stray dog.

Was this his life now?

Because _what the actual fuck._

It wouldn't be for long, though, if he had his way. Last night's plan to send the alien back to space still seemed the best course of action, and even if it required the alien to be awake, Yuuri could lay the groundwork by himself.

The alarm clock on his nightstand read 7:42. His parents were usually up and bustling about the inn by now, and he counted it a stroke of luck that his mother hadn't yet barged in to wake him. Best to head that possibility off at the pass, before he gave the poor woman a heart attack.

Yuuri pried himself out his chair, groaning as his muscles protested. He caught a glimpse of himself in his mirror and noted he looked as miserable as he felt, which would serve his nefarious purposes well. He pinched the light top blanket from his bed without disturbing the alien, wrapped it around himself like a cloak, and tiptoed out of his room, careful to shut his door behind him.

After a quick detour to sweep up the sand from the _genkan_ floor, he found Hiroko in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for the inn's few guests. "Good morning!" she greeted him as he trudged in.

"Hi, _'kaasan_." He pitched his voice as low and scratchy as he could, and his mother's head shot up, a frown creasing her brow.

"Oh, Yuuri, what's the matter? You look terrible!" She pulled him toward her by the shoulders and reached up to place a palm to his forehead. "You don't feel feverish. Didn't sleep well?"

"Yeah, I think I only got a couple of hours. You… you know."

His mother shot him a small, sad smile. Long nights of anxiety-fueled insomnia were nothing new for Yuuri, and Hiroko was well aware of the letter that lay waiting in his desk drawer. "Well, here," she said, and turned to the tray of miso soup bowls she'd been ladling out. "Why don't you take a bowl back to your room, and try and get some more sleep? I won't disturb you, and you can come down for lunch when you're ready."

"That sounds great, Mom," said Yuuri weakly. He had to fight not to tear up. His mother had always been so _good_ to him, so patient and understanding even when he must have been frustrating to deal with. It killed him to lie to her, even if by omission, but he forced a quavering smile and took the soup. "Thank you."

"Of course! Feel better, dear." Hiroko patted Yuuri on the shoulder, gentle and soothing, and he died a little more inside. He trudged back upstairs with his ill-gotten breakfast and wondered how the hell this was going to work.

At least he'd bought himself some time.

The alien was exactly where Yuuri had left him, curled inward on his side and huddled under the comforter. Yuuri put the soup down on his desk, settled back into his chair, and scooted closer to the bed for a better look. He had no point of reference for what constituted 'healthy' for the alien's species, but the alien's breathing was smooth and even, his cheeks flushed a dusky pink. He wasn't in any immediate danger, and that afforded Yuuri the opportunity to examine him in more detail than he'd had the chance to do the night previous.

Just the sight of him had Yuuri's heart pounding. It was uncomfortable to even think about (for a number of reasons Yuuri would rather not unpack), but the alien was even stranger and more beautiful in the light of day. His eyelashes were long and pale, almost white, casting faint shadows where they fanned over his sharp cheekbones. Apprehensive, Yuuri reached out and touched the pad of one trembling finger to the alien's cheek. The alien didn't react. The skin was cool and smooth, with a strange velvetiness almost like silicone, nor did it absorb or diffuse light in quite the same way as Yuuri's own. The slope of his nose was straight and regal, the mouth soft. The single silky, pointed ear that was visible twitched minutely every so often, and flicked when Yuuri traced his finger along the delicate shell. Next he petted the alien's medium-cropped hair, which was sleek and smooth and feather-fine. Yuuri had taken it last night to be a silvery gray, but in the light it was faintly _iridescent_ , catching blues and pinks and oranges from the sun in its sheen. Yuuri had never seen anything like it on Earth. Nonetheless, the physiology they _did_ share was considerable. They were both bipedal, with two arms, hands and feet, and at least visually similar facial anatomy.

One hand was exposed, resting loosely curled at the edge of Yuuri's mattress, and he leaned in to inspect it. The alien had five fingers in a familiar arrangement: an opposable thumb, three normal-sized digits, and a pinky proportionally a bit shorter than Yuuri's own. There was a thin, transparent band around the wrist that Yuuri hadn't noticed the night before, and he wondered what purpose it served. The thick, black nails he'd noted last night looked to be filed down, perhaps more like claws in their natural state. Yuuri remembered the alien's sharp teeth, and wondered what it meant. Maybe his species were naturally predators.

Yuuri would no doubt learn about his guest in more detail when he awoke, but until then, he'd have to satisfy himself with independent research. He pulled his phone from his pocket and opened a Google window. Cognizant that suspicious search terms might attract unwanted attention, he tried, 'alien sightings japan'. He got several spurious conspiracy-theory websites, but most were focused on UFO's and not aliens themselves. 'Humanoid alien pointed ears' was too broad, he discovered a moment later, when he turned up countless references to Star Trek, and explanations for why aliens in visual media often differed so little from humans. He did find an interesting article on convergent evolution, and why the bipedal mammalian body type might be the most efficient and advantageous, but nothing to shed light on his own situation.

Come to think of it, Yuuri wasn't even sure this alien _was_ a mammal—he hadn't exactly been focused on that particular detail while trying to save their lives last night, and he wasn't about to peek under the covers and check for nipples now. Besides, the alien might be a light sleeper, and if he awoke in the middle of Yuuri's exploration, he probably wouldn't take kindly to being pawed over. And well-rested and recovered from last night's ordeal, he had the potential to be dangerous.

Hmm. Maybe Yuuri ought to have his baseball bat on hand.

Yuuri thought back to the last place he'd seen the bat, youth-sized, but sturdy aluminum. Ah, right! Under the bed. He hadn't touched the thing since middle school, when skating had become truly serious, and he was glad now that he'd never thought to get rid of it. He scooted off his chair and onto all fours to dig around in the clutter, letting out a faint "Hah!" of triumph when his fingers closed around the cool metal shaft. He pulled the bat free and sat back on his haunches, hefting the weapon in his hands. He tested the weight and gave it a few experimental swings. It was lighter than he remembered, but he could still do some damage with it if he needed to, when the alien regained consciousness.

Which was right now, apparently, as Yuuri learned when he lifted his head and came face to face with an alien who was _very much awake_ , and staring right at him.

There was a half second's delay while Yuuri's body caught up with his brain's reaction, during which his stomach dropped and his skin prickled as if he'd been dunked in ice water. The bat fell from Yuuri's slack fingers and clanged out of reach. The moment his nerves were firing properly, he _shrieked_ and scooted backwards on his ass as quickly as he could. " _Aah!_ "

In the same space the alien burst from the covers and jerked upright, eyes wide and pupils dilating to black holes ringed by thin halos of blue. " _Iyah!_ " His lips drew back in a primal sneer, baring those sharp teeth, and he pressed himself flat against the wall behind him.

A second wave of powerful fear flooded Yuuri's senses, sending his pulse skyrocketing. His hands and feet tingled with numbness. His fingers twitched and his body tensed. He couldn't get enough air. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't–

 _Panic attack_ , some rational part of his brain supplied. _You're having a panic attack_. And of all the times for it to happen, it had to be when he was at the mercy of a _very_ unhappy alien who could probably kill him with his bare hands.

An alien who was panting fast and shallow, eyes darting wildly and ears pinned back against his skull, blunted claws scrabbling and leaving faint gouges in the wall plaster.

And that's when Yuuri realized—somehow, something about the fear gripping his brain was _foreign_. He, Katsuki Yuuri, was terrified, yes. But there were other emotions laced in with it: confusion, disorientation, loss. It didn't make sense for him to feel that way in his own bedroom, even if he _was_ trapped in it with an alien. And that realization was just enough for his brain to reassert itself, giving him the strength necessary to snap out of his panic spiral.

"H-hey," Yuuri choked out in English, and righted himself. The alien's head snapped up, blue eyes locking on his face. Yuuri forced his hands to unclench, to come up and spread in what he hoped was a universal gesture of peace. "Easy. I'm not going to hurt you." _Not unless you give me a reason_.

The panic didn't abate, but it was threaded through with doubt and more confusion, corroborating Yuuri's insane theory: the fear he felt was not entirely his own. The alien was telepathically projecting his emotions onto Yuuri somehow, and compounding his fight-or-flight response. Not that it was the alien's fault, considering he'd awoken to Yuuri swinging around a weapon—but that was neither here nor there. Yuuri needed to do something to calm the alien, or they'd both be in danger of passing out.

He recalled the advice of a school counselor he'd once visited. It was a longshot considering he'd never followed the advice himself (and who knew whether alien psychology worked the same way), but it was worth trying. As carefully and non-threateningly as he could, he pushed himself off the floor and back into his chair. Wide eyes tracked Yuuri's every movement.

"Breathe with me?" Yuuri asked. The alien's attention snapped to Yuuri's mouth, presaging another wave of confusion. When repeating himself in Japanese produced similar results, he tried to _think_ at the alien in case his telepathy was two-way, and when that didn't work, Yuuri resigned himself to demonstrating. He fought his body's urge to hyperventilate and drew in a long, slow breath. It came out shakier and more explosive than he'd have liked, but the second attempt was better. _In. Out._ He gestured to the alien, who stared hard, still drawing in those shocky little gasps. "Come on," Yuuri encouraged him, feeling ridiculous but unwilling to give up. "Breathe with me; you can do it." _In. Out._

Yuuri _felt_ the alien catch on, projected uncertainty replaced with understanding, and watched as his tiny breaths gradually deepened into longer inhalations, and then to gentle sighs to match Yuuri's. _In. Out._ The alien's ears unfolded to prick forward. The sneer faded from his lips and hid his fangs from view. His hands came slowly away from the walls, open and palms outstretched like Yuuri's. And bit by bit, the panic began to recede to a background buzz. As it did, the projection itself grew fainter, as if the alien were getting a handle on whatever psychic ability allowed him to share his emotions.

It was _working_. Yuuri had actually done it. He'd communicated with an _alien_ , and nobody was trying to kill or maim anybody else. That was progress, right?

When he no longer felt his heart was about to beat its way out his chest, Yuuri allowed himself a shaky smile. "Good. You did so well!" Yuuri could tell by the resulting faint wave of confusion that the alien didn't understand the words themselves, but he appeared to parse the sentiment, projecting back a fledgling, cautious trust. The alien carefully folded himself back into a sitting position on Yuuri's bed, and as he did, his mouth twitched in the barest of returned smiles.

(After all the articles Yuuri had read on the bizarre possibilities for alien communication, he was relieved that smiles were universal.)

"Yavet," the alien said in a scratchy whisper. It was recognizably a word, which answered the question of whether his people used spoken language. It also carried with it a sense of humility and gratitude, so Yuuri took it to mean, 'thanks'.

"Ieie," he replied automatically in Japanese, and then decided it might be for the best if he picked a language and stuck to it consistently. "It's nothing."

The alien met Yuuri's eyes again, peered at him for a moment, and whispered, "Uo shumos." As he spoke, Yuuri experienced a vision that could only have been a memory. It somehow had the sensation of 'pastness' to it, and likewise Yuuri knew innately that it was the alien's memory and not his own: he felt distant impressions of terror, saw disjointed flashes of sea and sky, and out of the darkness, a hand. _Yuuri's_ hand. The memory was tinged with certainty and awe. It was the telepathic equivalent of saying,  < _It was you_. >

Helpless, Yuuri could only nod. He scarcely believed last night had happened himself.

"Yavet," the alien repeated, this time more forcefully, and with a stronger wash of gratitude. His voice broke over the word, and he descended into a bout of raspy coughing.

Yuuri gasped and spent half a second panicking over alien diseases, and then mentally facepalmed at his lack of foresight. Of _course_ the alien would be thirsty first thing in the morning after a near-drowning. He wracked his brain for anything he had access to in his bedroom that might help. The soup!

Yuuri plucked the lukewarm bowl off the desk and held it out to the alien, who was squinting as he coughed into his elbow. Yuuri could only hope the alien was capable of digesting Earth food—but the alien merely glanced at the contents of the bowl before snatching it with his free hand. He drank the broth down greedily, throat working, to quell his coughing. It abated to dry hiccoughs, and after a few smaller sips, quieted down to nothing. Yuuri breathed a sigh of relief.

Thus cured, the alien held the bowl up to scrutinize the remaining contents. He sniffed dubiously at the seaweed, and extended an almost comically long pink tongue to prod at a tofu chunk. His nose wrinkled.

"No good?" Yuuri asked, amused.

In reply, the alien handed the soup remains politely back. It seemed he wasn’t a fan of veggies. Yuuri smiled to show him there were no hard feelings, and set the bowl back on his desk.

The alien lifted a blocky hand to the center of his bare chest, where he traced his index finger in a small circle. He cleared his throat. "Veek'trr." The word—the alien's name, Yuuri presumed—was arrestingly musical, the vowel a soaring chime, and the final, trilled R's rumbling like a purr in his throat. The accompanying psychic projection was deep and personal and amounted to something like, < _Whimsy_. >

Yuuri knew he couldn't hope to replicate the sounds he'd heard, but it was close enough to a human name of European origin that he might be able to approximate it. "Viktor?" he tried.

The alien waved a hand in what Yuuri suspected was a 'no' gesture. "Veek'trrrr," he said slower, drawing out and emphasizing the trill, as well as the projection, < ** _Whimsy_** **.** >

"Oh!" Yuuri exclaimed as it dawned on him: the psychic component was actually part of the alien's _name_. That was fascinating, though it rendered the name doubly unpronounceable by human standards. "I'm very sorry," Yuuri said, bowing apologetically in the hopes that it would help convey his meaning, "but I don't think I can say that properly. The closest I can really get is 'Viktor'." It felt weirdly inappropriate to his Japanese sensibilities to do so, but he rolled the R to show he was at least putting in an effort to get it right.

The alien blinked, adorably perplexed, and then seemed to accept that Yuuri's mangling of his name was as good as he was going to get. "Hir zhavorik, 'Viktor' i fenta," he said with a distinctly human shrug, projecting along with it, < _Limitation. Understanding_. > Yuuri was beginning to realize that these thoughts and emotions he kept experiencing were a fundamental part of the alien's way of communicating, augmenting and clarifying his spoken words.

"So, I can call you Viktor, then?" Yuuri asked, gesturing in succession to himself, his mouth, and the alien, just to make sure he'd comprehended correctly.

"Sha, Viktor i fenta," the alien replied, and repeated the circle gesture at the center of his chest. "Rr uo, na eryt Viktor." < _Gentle encouragement_. >

"Viktor," Yuuri said, and the alien beamed sunnily at him. The fangs were a lot less threatening framed in that heart-shaped grin. As Viktor relaxed bit by bit, so did Yuuri. Perhaps this alien wasn't directly dangerous after all.

"Veled uo? Uo eryt?" Viktor asked, gesturing toward Yuuri. < _Identity. Curiosity_. >

That question was easy enough to understand, even without the benefit of the psychic augmentation. Yuuri tapped the center of his chest. "Yuuri."

Viktor's eyes went wide in apparent excitement. "Yuri?" he repeated, followed by an off-putting wave of < _Aggression_ >, hilariously out of place given how cheerful Viktor seemed when projecting it.

"Uh, no, oh jeez," Yuuri protested, waving his hands in negation like he'd seen Viktor do. Not only was the verbal pronunciation a little off, but that psychic tag did _not_ feel appropriate to his personality. Maybe 'Yuri  < _Aggression_ >' was another alien Viktor knew. "Um, it's Yu-u-ri. Yuuri." He enunciated each syllable carefully, and followed it up with a tentative smile—in the absence of the ability to telepathically project the concept of friendliness, maybe a physical gesture would suffice.

"Yuuri?" < _Anxious hope_. >

Well, it wasn't exactly the emotion Yuuri had been aiming for, but it was close enough. "That works," he said, and nodded.

"Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuuuuri," Viktor sing-songed, startling a little laugh out of him. "Dvya eryt." < _Pleasing identity._ >

"Well, um. T-thank you." Yuuri didn't think his name was all that special, but if the alien liked it, that was fine by him.

Now that they'd established something of a friendly rapport, it was only polite to properly greet one another. Yuuri bowed his head and said, "Hello. It's nice to meet you, Viktor."

Viktor watched Yuuri do this with his head tilted quizzically, blinking—was that a nictitating third eyelid?—and then his eyes lit with understanding. He raised his hand up and held it toward Yuuri, palm out. Yuuri raised his own hand questioningly, and the alien nodded in encouragement. Slowly Yuuri brought their hands together until the palms were touching and their fingers rested against one another. Viktor's hand was cool and callused, but otherwise felt remarkably normal. His pinky was the same length as Yuuri's, but his other four fingers overtopped Yuuri's by a considerable margin. He folded them over Yuuri's fingertips, and his eyes crinkled in amusement.

"Murna'an, Yuuri," he said. < _Friendliness. Novelty._ >

"Murna'an," Yuuri repeated, and Viktor stifled a grin at Yuuri's no-doubt awful pronunciation.

They withdrew their hands and took a moment to simply sit and stare at one another. Yuuri had gotten a decent look at Viktor last night and this morning, but there were always new details to take in: the long neck, the strong arms and legs, the broad, muscular shoulders, the… oh, wow, yeah, those were nipples. It seemed there was something to that mammal article after all. Lower down, he had what looked like a belly button, and Yuuri could definitely make out the faint silhouette of _something_ beneath those skintight shorts. If he was a mammal, did that mean he had a…? Yuuri realized where he was staring a half-second too late and glanced up to see Viktor looking down at his own shorts, as if wondering what was so interesting about them. Then Yuuri felt a wave of surprise break over him, tinged with amusement. The alien met his eyes, and Yuuri caught the flicker of a sly smirk. He could almost _hear_ the implied, "Like what you see?" And then, to add insult to injury, Viktor began to _laugh_ , chirruping and melodic, but unmistakable.

Yuuri's cheeks went incandescent with embarrassment. "Oh god," he moaned, and buried his face in his palms. Leave it to Yuuri to make things awkward with a member of another species within five minutes of properly meeting him. The thing was, Yuuri _did_ like what he saw. Last night's near-death experience had been enough to dampen his hormonal teenage sex drive, but now, in relative safety, Viktor's, ah, _assets_ were harder to ignore. _Get it together, Katsuki, you creep_ , he reprimanded himself. Now was not the time to lust over a space alien, even if he wasn't an unattractive one. Besides, Yuuri was plain-looking at the best of times, and itchy and saltwater encrusted, there was no way anyone (let alone a gorgeous alien) could find him attractive.

Yuuri dragged his hands down his face and opened his eyes to glare at the quietly chortling extraterrestrial. "Are you done yet?" He'd like to move on to something constructive, thank you very much.

"Samozha, samozha," Viktor said, reining in his amusement. Along with it, Yuuri felt a wash of apology with a distinct element of insincerity to it. The alien equivalent of sorry-not-sorry. Fantastic.

Perhaps mercifully, Yuuri's mother chose that very moment to knock on the bedroom door. "Are you alright, dear?" Hiroko asked, muffled by the thick wood. "I thought I heard some loud noises a minute ago. I was a little concerned."

Yuuri's heart leaped in his chest and he launched himself out of his chair, prepared to bar the door with his body if she tried to open it. Viktor, too, startled at the sound and hunkered lower onto Yuuri's bed. "Everything's fine!" Yuuri yelped. "Just put on some TV in the background to help me sleep."

"I see," Hiroko said doubtfully. Yuuri often couldn't get to sleep unless he had complete silence, and he'd let his family know it in the past. Repeatedly. "Do you need anything to drink? I can take the soup bowl downstairs if you're done with it."

Yuuri glanced over to the half-empty bowl on his desk, and then over at his bed, where Viktor was–

Oh. Oh no. The alien had _vanished._

"I'm good, Mom, really!"  Yuuri squawked, and then cleared his throat, slumping against the door. "I mean, I'm still working on the soup. Thank you, though!"

Yuuri did a frantic mental inventory of his room; unless Viktor had the ability to teleport, the alien had to be around here somewhere. The window was still tightly shut with the curtains drawn. Yuuri's closet was too full of junk to accommodate someone of Viktor's size, as was the crawlspace under the bed. The cubby beneath the desk contained only the stack of old textbooks he used as a footstool, which just left… Hmm.

Yuuri narrowed his eyes, and let his gaze roam slowly over his bed, combing for details. The light blanket he'd worn downstairs was draped messily at the foot and pooled onto the floor. At the head of the bed, his pillow sat bunched up and shoved against the wall. The pale blue sheets were dishevelled, one corner peeking out from under the comforter. The comforter itself was hardly noteworthy, save for the enormous lump at its center. Nothing unusual about that.

…Wait a second.

Yuuri's eyes wanted to skim away, but he forced them to remain locked on the gigantic lump. It was about the size of a six-and-a-half-foot-tall space alien, if said alien were lying curled up in the fetal position. Further, Yuuri didn't recall his comforter having a single twitching, pointed ear sticking out of it. He focused on the strange sensation of disinterest he got when looking at the lump. Under his mental scrutiny, it resolved to something like, < _YOU SEE NOTHING._ >

It was a goddamn Jedi mind trick.

Yuuri recalled a viral video of a gigantic boxer dog trying and failing utterly to hide behind some curtains, and he had to shove a fist into his mouth to keep from laughing. The aborted laugh came out as a cough and a shuddering snort instead, the shaking of his shoulders rattling the door on its hinges. One blue eye peeked out at Yuuri from under the comforter, narrowed at him as if its owner were wondering whether he'd gone mad. Yuuri only snorted harder at the absurdity of the situation.

"You're sure you're alright?" Hiroko asked again, and Yuuri desperately swallowed the sniggers down.

"Y-yeah, I–funny part of the movie I'm watching."

Hiroko hummed a bit disapprovingly, and Yuuri's guilt over deceiving her again was finally enough to sober the edge off his hysterical amusement.

"Okay, honey," she conceded. "Just let me know if you change your mind. I'd be happy to grab anything you like."

"Thank you! I will."

The faint shuffle of her slippers retreated down the hall, but Yuuri didn't release the breath he was holding until he heard the door to the inn's guest area shut. It took a great effort not to let it out as a giggle. He almost lost his grip again when Viktor emerged, blinking, from his hilariously inadequate hiding place under the comforter. The alien's formerly sleek hair stood on end in an iridescent halo, mussed and staticky.

"That was pretty good, with the psychic stuff," Yuuri admitted with a grin. He waved a hand in a broad semicircle. "This is not the lump you're looking for."

Viktor didn't understand, clearly left out of the joke, but he took Yuuri's good humor as a sign that they were safe for now. "Rhodet?" he asked, ears flicking. < _Cautious optimism._ >

"Yeah, yeah, we're good," Yuuri sighed, and slumped down onto his chair. "We should just try and be quiet if we can. You know," he lowered his voice to an exaggerated whisper, "quiet."

Viktor nodded solemnly. "Shurosh." < _Private._ >

At least the alien understood that much. They'd done fairly well at communicating so far, and Yuuri was encouraged by it. But if they ever hoped to get Viktor back to wherever he'd come from, they'd need to discuss topics far more sophisticated and specialized than simple greetings, or those which could be explained with body language or emotional impressions alone.

Apparently Viktor was thinking along the same lines. "Uo, vechnit?" He pointed at Yuuri, then tapped at the clear band encircling his wrist. < _Knowledge. Connection_. >

"What is that thing?" Yuuri asked, brows furrowed. A communication device, perhaps? "I have a cell phone, if that's what you're asking."

In reply, Viktor held his wrist out and ran a thumb over the band, and to Yuuri's astonishment, a holographic display winked to life, projected from glowing circuitry within the band itself and bobbing slightly with the motion of Viktor's body. Multicolored text bubbles fanned out from a central icon, in an unfamiliar, blocky script.

Yuuri stared in speechless awe. Even after witnessing the crash of a literal spaceship and making the acquaintance of an alien, the device was a wonder to behold. He'd seen something like it once in a movie, but Earth's inventors were still quite a few years away from bringing the technology to life. "What does it do?" he asked.

"Prokhal a nomod."< _Information. Search._ >

Alien Google?

Viktor flicked his hand through the hologram to select certain pieces of text, and in a few sharp motions, he'd brought up what looked like a profile on himself. On the left hovered a three-dimensional portrait of a slightly younger-looking Viktor from the shoulders up. His silvery hair was far longer in the portrait than at present, bound in a thick ponytail that hung below the frame's edge. He was wearing what looked like a silver-trimmed black uniform jacket, and a rakish grin. To the right of the portrait, several boxes contained text in a familiar format that suggested a list of attributes, like Yuuri's JSF writeup.

"Na," Viktor said, and pointed with his free hand from the profile to himself.

Yuuri peered closer to see what he could glean from the profile, even if he couldn’t read Viktor’s language, but Viktor seemed to balk at the scrutiny. He quickly dismissed the profile for the previous radial menu and cycled through options until he’d retrieved a new item, which took the form of a prose-based article, with headings and paragraphs like an encyclopedia entry. On the left where Viktor’s portrait had been was now a full-body holographic model of some sort of bipedal, slimy worm-lizard in a diaphanous toga.

"Skevvit." Whatever this creature was, when Viktor spoke its name, it carried with it the impression of friendliness and allyship. Another sentient species, out there in the wider universe? Though Yuuri would have liked to know more about this new alien creature, Viktor once again didn't linger. He returned to the main menu, and this time pulled up a perfect, tiny model of the Milky Way. "Sivash Nuira."

Yuuri gasped in delight at the miniscule clusters of stars and nebulae swirling lazily over Viktor's wrist. Around the model, text callouts presumably highlighted specific information. "Incredible," he breathed. A blinking red dot marked a glimmering cluster in one of the lazily twirling arms that Yuuri thought might represent their current location on Earth. A green dot hovered further up the arm, paired with a large, bold word in the indecipherable script. "Is this where you're from?" Yuuri asked, pointing to the green dot.

Viktor touched the callout beside the green dot and a popup appeared, featuring a zoomed-in image of a planet with blue-green oceans and pink clouds. "Vata'shai," Viktor replied. < _Home_. > It was tinged with an undefinable sadness, and quiet pride. With a swipe, he sent the popup away.

Yuuri bowed his head in silent apology. It felt as though he were intruding on Viktor's private feelings, despite that they were sitting in Yuuri's room, on Yuuri's planet, and Viktor had broadcast them to him, however faintly. It was also rather discouraging to know just how far from his own planet Viktor was. No wonder the poor alien was so upset, marooned such a long way from home. Yuuri knew he couldn't really fathom the precise distance between Earth and Vata'shai, but it was certainly beyond the bounds of human space travel.

Then another thought occurred to Yuuri: if the wristband worked similarly to a human smartphone or computer, they could use it to contact Viktor's people and request a rescue.

Yuuri glanced up at Viktor surreptitiously and gazed into Viktor's sea blue eyes, marveling at how they glittered in the light of the starry hologram. A small, irrational part of Yuuri was almost reluctant to send Viktor back. The alien was heartbreakingly lovely, and there was so much about the universe he could no doubt share with Yuuri, so much that Yuuri wanted to know. Unfortunately, every moment Viktor lingered was another opportunity for his presence on Earth to be discovered. The both of them were in very real danger if Yuuri didn't figure something out soon.

Still, it was a shame.

Viktor shook his head as if to rid himself of his dark thoughts and looked up to meet Yuuri's eyes. Yuuri startled, having been caught staring, but Viktor didn’t seem to notice.

"Uo?" he asked, and gestured back at Yuuri. "Uo vechnit?"

"Oh, right!" Yuuri scooted his chair around back to face his desk, and flipped open his laptop. The screen lit up, browser still open to the research he'd been doing on living in Detroit before he'd gone to the beach last night. Viktor scooted in closer, ears pricked forward with interest. Yuuri quickly navigated to a Wikipedia article about the Milky Way featuring an image of the night sky taken from an observatory, and turned the laptop to face Viktor. "Like this?"

The alien's eyes flicked over the block of text information alongside the image, and his face brightened. "Sha, Sivas Nuira! Dvya vechnit." < _Same, good._ > He pointed at the laptop. "Yuuri, uo ogdo eryta vechnit?" < _Understanding difference. Curiosity._ >

"You're asking what it's called in English? Computer."

"Com...pyutrr." < _Uncertain_. > Despite mangling the pronunciation, Viktor made the word sound exotically beautiful, humming the 'm' low in his throat, and purring the 'r'. "Computrr?"

Yuuri shrugged. "I guess that’s halfway intelligible. Most people could figure out what you were trying to say." Not that that would be an issue, if Viktor went back to space before he could meet anyone else.

Viktor reached toward the computer, then drew his hand back halfway. He looked to Yuuri questioningly. "Malvo a'arisi uo computer?" < _Deferential request. Reassurance._ >

"You want to borrow it?" Yuuri asked, and Viktor nodded vehemently. "Uh, okay, I guess." He scooted the laptop to the edge of the desk, within Viktor's reach, but close enough that he could pull it back if Viktor tried anything destructive with it.

Viktor held up his wristband close to the laptop. He dismissed the model of the Milky Way, summoning the device’s main menu once again, and then he swiped through a long series of nested options. A lattice of narrow beams shot from the wristband to the laptop, scanning it methodically from top to bottom.

"Whoa," Yuuri protested, halfway to stealing the laptop back, but Viktor shot him an alarmed glance and jerked his free hand in negation. "Alright, Alright." He sat back in his chair and tried to relax.

When the scan was complete, a scrolling cascade of minuscule symbols appeared above the wristband, growing narrower over time as if something were being decrypted, until finally a square window popped up.

It took Yuuri a moment to recognize what he was looking at. "Is that…" he said weakly, taking in the semi-transparent pane, list of icons with connectivity meters, and familiar hiragana characters. He'd seen it many times before when connecting to the WiFi at home, school, and internet cafes. "Windows Vista?"

Rather than answer, Viktor cheerfully thrust his wrist out to Yuuri so the hologram was hovering almost under his chin. "Uo na novoshal?" < _Expectant_. >

Yuuri stared down at the projected image almost cross-eyed. Did Viktor want Yuuri to help him connect to the internet? That seemed easy enough. "Okay, well, here goes." Since there was obviously no mouse to use, he hovered his finger directly over the icon of his parents' WiFi network. When he brought the finger down on the hologram, it tingled, almost like he was touching a solid surface. Immediately a second window popped up and prompted him for the password, along with a keyboard interface. The keyboard was in the Dvorak layout, bizarrely, but he was able to hunt and peck until he'd typed out 'quadsalchow'. (Yuuri had been the one to set up the wireless router.)

The moment he hit the enter key, the Windows interface flickered and disappeared, replaced with another flood of scrolling text. Now and then more popups appeared, sometimes featuring Latin, Chinese, and Arabic characters, sometimes words, sometimes indecipherable alien gibberish. Yuuri and Viktor both watched, entranced, though Yuuri understandably moreso, as he had little idea of what was happening.

Suddenly Yuuri had a horrifying thought—in hooking Viktor up to the internet, he'd just potentially provided an alien, a goddamn _space alien_ , access to all of humanity's most dangerous and embarrassing secrets. What if Viktor was some sort of forward scout gathering information for his people? What if he was hunting for Earth's weaknesses, and he'd just relayed all the most glaring holes in the planet's defenses to the alien fleet? What if… what if Viktor somehow unearthed Yuuri's old _blog?_

They'd write about him in the history books someday. Katsuki 'The Idiot' Yuuri; gave an alien his WiFi password and singlehandedly defeated the entire planet in one fell swoop. See fig. A for a picture of him acne-ridden and in braces, circa 2005, with 'sk8er boi' photoshopped over it in pink sparkles. _God_.

If Viktor turned out to be evil, he was so fucking screwed.

When the process—whatever it was—was complete, a lone, blinking white square appeared, as if the device were waiting for input. Viktor gestured excitedly to the device and said, "Yuuri, blikhal! Blikhal!" < _Anticipation._ >

Yuuri had no earthly idea what Viktor wanted from him, and he was apprehensive to speculate. "Uh, what?" he said shakily. "I'm not sure what you want me to–" He cut himself off, startled, as the white square over Viktor's wrist disappeared and was replaced by a line of hovering white English type:

_UH WHAT I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU WANT ME TO_

As soon as it appeared, the text began to stack and rearrange itself, and word after word flipped over to reveal blocky alien script. Viktor's eyes scanned over it, and he grinned. "Na dinij, uo blikat." < _Satisfaction._ > This time, the text appeared in Viktor's language first—in a pinkish orange, curiously— then shuffled and flipped until it had produced a sentence in English:

_I WISH YOU TO SPEAK_

Yuuri looked at the hovering text, and got an idea. "Itte iru koto ba wakaru?" he said in Japanese. _Do you understand what I'm saying?_ After only a slight delay, white kanji and hiragana characters sprouted to life over the wristband, before they, too, were translated. Yuuri was impressed; he hadn't expected the translator to be able to parse Saga dialect. This was _so cool_.

Viktor read the resulting text, and wriggled in place. "Sha, sha! Na… wakaru." < _Exhilaration_. >

Interestingly, when the wristband reproduced Viktor's spoken words, they came out even pinker than last time—almost fuchsia. Yuuri wondered whether it meant something. He pointed at the hovering ' _YES YES I UNDERSTAND_ ' and asked, "Is there a reason why what you say comes out in color, and what I say comes out in white?"

This took a little longer for the wristband to translate, and when it was complete, Viktor read over it and paused for a moment, seeming to struggle with how to explain. His answer, too, was lengthier than any of their communications thus far. Yuuri waited impatiently for the wristband to process it.

 _IN-PERSON COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MY PEOPLE USES VERBAL SPEECH AND MIND SPEECH_  
_DIGITAL VOICE COMMUNICATION IS SAME_  
_BUT TEXT COMMUNICATION HAS NO MIND SPEECH CHANNEL_  
_THEREFORE COLOR SIMULATES SPEAKER'S TONE AND EMOTION  
YOU GENERATE NO MIND SPEECH INPUT SO YOUR WORDS ARE NEUTRAL WHITE_

Over the course of the monologue, Yuuri had felt a series of psychic impressions: < _Isolation... Longing... Curiosity._ > And sure enough, the color of Viktor's speech-text started off a pale, faded blue, then over time deepened into cornflower blue, and then swung back around to a more muted version of the original pinkish-orange. Yuuri supposed there was some sort of universal understanding amongst Viktor's people for which colors were associated with which emotions. "Sugoi ne," he whispered, too quietly for the wristband to pick up. A color-coded system like that would have been great for Earth's text-based communications. Then he'd be able to tell by Celestino's correspondences with him whether he _really_ wanted to take Yuuri on as a student, or whether he was just being polite. Yuuri thought once again of the letter that lay waiting in his desk drawer, and shuddered. Celestino was hardly Yuuri's biggest problem at the moment, and far from his first priority. He could put off his decision until he'd sorted out the situation with Viktor, at least.

In Yuuri’s distraction, the alien had taken to pointing his wristband at various objects around Yuuri's room, scanning them, and translating the explanations the human internet provided. His wristband would read the object's name aloud in English and Viktor would repeat it, sometimes three or four times in order to make sure he'd gotten the pronunciation right. "Meh… meh-dal," he said, with the wristband pointed at Yuuri's Junior Worlds bronze, strewn carelessly on top of the dresser. Yuuri cringed. Why did everything always come back to skating?

"Uh, Viktor?" he asked, determined to change the subject. Viktor turned back to him with a smile, resetting his wristband's function to serve as a translator. Yuuri took in Viktor's glossy hair (still a little ruffled from their earlier adventure), his unearthly smooth skin, and the pointed ears pricked to attention, and once again marveled at how their species could be so superficially similar and yet fundamentally different. "If you don't mind me asking," Yuuri said, "what are you? I mean, what is your species called?"

Viktor's smile dimmed by a fraction when he read the translation, though there was still real pride in his voice and in the accompanying psychic projection when he answered, "Krrvata," and thumped his free hand as a fist against his chest. "Na…" he paused, momentarily at a loss, and then fiddled with his wristband for help. " _I_ … am… krrvata."

Again, that unpronounceable laryngeal trilled R. "Krrvata?" Yuuri tried his best, rolling it on his tongue as well as he could, and Viktor didn't hold it against him, nodding indulgently. He rattled off a series of sentences in his own language, which grew steadily more reddish-orange as they appeared over the translator, along with the projection of pride.

 _KRRVATA ARE ANCIENT RACE WITH UNIQUE CULTURE AND HISTORY_  
_WE ARE REGARDED AS MOST HONEST SPECIES IN QUADRANT_  
_ONE'S MOUTH MAY SPEAK UNTRUTHS BUT MIND SPEECH CANNOT LIE  
ALTHOUGH FOR THIS REASON WE ARE POOR DIPLOMATS_

The text went a little more yellowish at that last, and Yuuri caught a wave of chagrin.

"But universe-class at passive-aggression, I bet," he said, in what he realized too late was probably a poor attempt to cheer Viktor up. But when the translator had done its work, Viktor laughed, his eyes going squinty with mirth.

"Sha, uo tierset." < _Truth_. >

Yuuri snuggled down lower into his pajama top, oddly warmed. "So, mind speech," he remarked. "Can other species do that, or just your people? Also, am I the only one who can hear you?" He thought back to his mother coming upstairs and telling him she'd been 'concerned'.

"Mind… speech... krrvata only," Viktor said in halting, thickly accented English. < _Exclusive._ > Then he began to speak in his own language, gesticulating with his hands as if it would help Yuuri understand. Only when he got to the end of his explanation did he seem to realize that Yuuri had understood none of it beyond the telepathic impressions of pleasant conversation and interestedness he'd put out. Viktor sheepishly held out his wrist to Yuuri so he could see the translation.

 _MIND SPEECH HAS SIMILAR RANGE TO VERBAL SPEECH_  
_ONE MAY SHOUT OR WHISPER_  
_AND ELECTRONICALLY TRANSMIT OR AMPLIFY IT LIKE VOICE_  
_MIND SPEECH CAN BE PRIVATE AS WELL EVEN IF OTHERS ARE NEARBY_  
_WE LEARN CONTROL AS WE GROW  
YOUNG CHILDREN ARE ALWAYS SO NOISY_

"Amazing," Yuuri said once he'd finished reading. If he'd understood correctly, his mother probably _had_ picked up some of Viktor's initial panic, but she hadn't heard anything he'd projected at Yuuri since. That was relieving. Yuuri didn't want her thinking she'd lost her mind.

"Na… 'English' blikat kazhvonya," Viktor sighed. < _Glumness. Determination._ > A moment later, this new statement was translated as, ' _I MUST LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH_ '.

Yuuri's brows knit in mild confusion, and he straightened in his chair. "No offense, but… why? Will it take your people that long to come and rescue you?”

When Viktor finished reading the translation of Yuuri’s question, he looked up and locked eyes with him, and Yuuri realized with a sinking sense of dread that he’d been operating under some dangerous assumptions. Assumptions that could prove now to have been dead wrong.

"Ah, Yuuri," Viktor said softly, smiling at him though his ears had wilted and his mind spoke, < _Heartbreak._ > "Tchuk hir na Vata'shai a blivo, narik na leremeta dzhastal."

Yuuri feared to read the translation, when it appeared, but he forced his eyes to move, and his brain to process the words:

 _EVEN IF I COULD CONTACT VATA'SHAI  
_ _NO ONE WOULD COME FOR ME_

"Wh-why not?" Yuuri stuttered, bewildered and maybe even a little outraged on Viktor's behalf, if at no one in particular. "How could they just leave you behind?" Was it the travel-prohibitive distance, or the difficulty of entering Earth's orbit unnoticed?

Viktor smiled again, fond. His voice dropped to a faint whisper as he spoke, awash with sadness and regret and shame.

 _BECAUSE I AM BANISHED_  
_AND I WILL REMAIN SO  
UNTIL THE DAY I DIE_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes on Viktor's appearance and language, because I'm a sucker for unnecessary detail:
> 
> The way his skin reacts to light is based on infrared photography of humans, which is fascinating to me. The first image on [this](http://pixelcurse.com/photography/infrared-portrait) page is a particularly good example of the way infrared light interacts with skin. If you'll allow me to nerd out, the reason the skin looks so silky and smooth is because infrared light penetrates deeper into the skin than visible light, bouncing around and diffusing and softening the little textural details. In CG parlance, this quality is called [subsurface scattering](https://www.fxguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/compare2.jpg), and it's the same quality that makes our lips, ears, and fingers a slightly translucent glowing red when you shine a light through them. All this to say that Viktor's skin interacts with visible light in a way that makes him look just a little bit ethereal but is hard to put a finger on.
> 
> Viktor's ears, rather than a rigid, "fleshy" elf ear, are thin and flexible shells that most closely resemble a [deer's ear](http://c8.alamy.com/comp/F2JB1W/female-fallow-deer-head-with-lifted-ear-on-a-farm-F2JB1W.jpg) but less furry. The backs are covered in soft, fine vellus hair that makes them silky to the touch.
> 
> Krrvata mind speech is loosely inspired by thought-speech from the _Animorphs_ series of books, with the addition of the ability to convey flashes of memory. It carries with it an innate sense of "who's talking," but as shown when Viktor is panicking/hiding, if you're not specifically listening for mind speech, it can be difficult to distinguish it from your own thoughts.
> 
> Viktor's spoken language is based on Russian, of course. There's a loose sentence structure and verb moods, if you're paying attention. It's sparser than most Earth languages, as there's less need for adverbs and adjectives with mind speech to provide that nuance. On a side note, you have NO IDEA how hard it is to come up with "Russian-sounding" words that aren't coincidentally real Russian!! If I slip up, please kindly overlook it, or let me know if it's egregious and I'll try and change it.
> 
> Yuuri's Saga dialect is a real (and largely incomprehensible) thing, and if you haven't read about how it's used in the show, I wholeheartedly recommend [these](https://www.reddit.com/r/YOI/comments/5imj4s/little_things_that_are_lost_in_translation_in_yoi/) [three](http://965cchikudasai.tumblr.com/post/154172504833/friendly-reminder-that-yuuri-who-usually-speaks) [posts](http://yoimeta.tumblr.com/post/154309405294/thatshamelessyaoishipper-ha-yuri-jahad).

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! |･ω･)ﾉ


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